Published 7:01 pm, Friday, April 4, 2014

Here's one you don't often see in Hollywood. James Franco admitted Friday that he flirted with Scottish 17-year-old Lucy Clode on Instagram and through text messages.

Leaked online earlier this week, the messages show the 35-year-old actor tried to convince Clode to hook up at a New York hotel.

Friday on "Live! With Kelly and Michael," the Palo Alto native initially stumbled to explain himself but then offered a full confession.

"I didn't want to come on the show and feel awkward, so, yeah, I mean I guess, you know, I'm embarrassed, and I guess I'm just a model of, you know, how social media is tricky," he said. "It's a way to meet each other today. But what I've learned I guess just because I'm new to it is like, you don't know who you're talking to, and you know? So I used bad judgment. I learned my lesson."

On April 2, Franco met Clode outside his Broadway show "Of Mice and Men" and asked her to tag him on the Instagram video she took of him. That eventually led to a flirtatious exchange that culiminated with Franco writing, "You're single? What's the hotel? Should I rent a room?"

Franco, the star of "Spring Breakers" and the upcoming "Palo Alto" based on his short stories, told "Live" hosts Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan that he made a mistake. "Unfortunately in my position, I mean I have a very good life, but not only do I have to go through the embarrassing kind of rituals of kind of meeting someone, sometimes if I do that then it gets, you know, published for the world so now, you know, it's like doubly embarrassing."

Ripa was the first to commend Franco for owning up to the truth. "I think the way you came out here and handled it is perfectly acceptable. It happens to everybody," she said. "And I think it happens to movie stars on a much grander scale, like you just said, because everybody knows who you are."

Then Ripa jokingly added, "I promise I will not reveal our text messages to the world!"